


Magnum Opus

by winteryserpent (silencedancer)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alchemy Metaphors, Attempted Murder, Auror Harry Potter, Depiction of PTSD Symptoms, F/F, Gathering Quest, Horcruxes, M/M, Maybe Redemption, Not Prologue Compliant, Post-Hogwarts, Soul Level Weirdness, Tomarry Big Bang 2017, Universe Alteration, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-26 12:44:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12059232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silencedancer/pseuds/winteryserpent
Summary: Tom Riddle is dead and gone. At least that’s what everyone thought. Unfortunately, the pieces of his soul have not moved onto the afterlife and are stuck in the world-between where their Horcruxes were destroyed.Harry, now an experienced auror working for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had been throwing himself into his work, but burnt out. During his year’s sabbatical, Harry begins to have dreams of being back at the King’s Cross Station he saw when he died. The piece of Voldemort’s soul is still there in pain. Harry decides to help the fragmented soul and reaches out for him.And now Harry has gotten pulled into a strange quest to find all of the pieces of Tom Riddle’s soul and to reunite himself. To what end and how, neither of them really knows.





	1. Destruction and Calcination

_To Burn until the Material becomes White Ash…_

———

The boy from the book, charming with his words, had been dealt a fatal blow. Ink gushed out of his chest like blood, staining his immaculate clothing as he screamed. Once again incorporeal and unseen, he fell backwards and lay there in a fetal position, the pain wracking through his body unbearable. Unacknowledged tears of ink ran from his eyes, leaving a trail of dark gray on his face.

The diary left the chamber, but he did not.

—

Crack, snap!

His finger broke faster than he could react to the old man’s knife. It happened quickly: the ring on the finger, the release of the curse and the knife flashing as the old man responded to the attack. 

The spell should have killed the old man instantly. Tom raged at the indignity of being defeated by such an old man. It took him a while to notice that he was now alone in the ruins of the Gaunt hovel.

—

Screaming as his eyes burned, Riddle stepped back and tripped over the rock that the locket had lain on. Profanities streamed out of his mouth, his sight now gone. He barely felt the snow beneath him as he swore revenge against the boy who destroyed him.

—

He woke up to a burning pain in his arm and a younger version of himself sitting and watching over him.

“They got to you, I suppose. You wouldn’t be here if they didn’t,” was the only thing that his companion said.

The Tom Riddle who lived in the cup frowned and looked around, ignoring the pain in his arm. Recognizing the Chamber of Secrets, he asked, “How did I end up here?”

“I don’t know. I was stabbed with Emmie’s fang. I think they must’ve done the same to you. You don’t remember anything?”

Tom noted the ink stains on his younger self and found himself staring at the hole in his chest.

“You have one too,” the younger said, pointing to Tom’s arm, “It’s bright green though. Maybe because you weren’t so full of ink like me.”

He finally looked down at his arm and saw the gaping wound oozing bright yellow-green pus. It made him feel almost sick to his stomach looking at it, not from the grossness of it, but from the knowledge of his destruction and failure. All he could say was, “They never drank from the cup. I couldn’t have known.”

—

Molten metal streamed down his face and he screamed as it burned, pulling him away from the world that he had tried to cling to with all his might. Shatter, crack! went the diadem and he was now trapped in limbo.

It looked a lot like a burnt-out room of requirement.

—

The flayed child choked and struggled to draw breath.

It didn’t see Harry as he passed by.

—

Nagini, his familiar, came to rest whole and entire in the land between. Intuitively, she knew it was not time yet to lead her master to the world beyond.

And in the end, lay Tom Riddle on the grounds of Hogwarts, only a fraction of his former full self. Now he was lost and wandering the fog of the land between, unable to accept his death and to find those parts he had so violently sundered from himself.

\----

_Several years later..._

Harry was increasingly haunted by dreams of the suffocating child.

As far as nightmares went, it was one of the tamer ones and left Harry more sad than terrified. Much better than the dreams Harry would wake up from with a jolt, his pajama top soaked through with sweat.

He rarely screamed, not like Ginny did when they were still a couple and sharing a bed. It was rare for either to have a restful night’s sleep in those horrible days after the war ended. It was comforting at first to have another to cling to in those dark hours of the night when your pulse was still racing, knowing that you weren’t alone. They had all lived in so much fear that it was almost impossible to believe it was all over. 

Yet in time, it seemed that the trauma they had gone through also brought them into conflict. Both had heard the voice of Lord Voldemort in their head, playing with their mind, their memories, but Harry would forget that Ginny knew what it was like. This would lead to arguments and eventually they had decided that it was better to go their separate ways before they lost their friendship entirely. 

It was then that Harry put all his energy into his Auror training, focusing on the single desire to prevent what had happened to him and his friends. Children should not have fought this war. The adults should’ve been able to head off Voldemort if only they had listened. He was treated with more respect than he would’ve been otherwise by his mentors, but only because he had already proven himself in their eyes.

They would still not listen. It happened with supervisors later on too. There were too many problems he saw and he gave up on changing things. He did things as he was told, went where he was supposed to and eventually just couldn’t anymore. After years of trying, working, and finally accepting that no one was going to listen, even to The Boy Who Lived, he asked for a year’s leave for personal reasons. It was granted. He had not taken a sick day in years and his supervisors were more than relieved to see him go. He had worried them for some time.

A week into his much needed vacation, the dreams started. Even when his memories of the war were fresh, he did not dream of that otherworldly King’s Cross in the mist and the strange events that occurred there. But now, they came to him. Slowly at first and only vaguely remembered, the dreams increased until he had them almost every night.

\----

They always began the same: the mist, the awareness of the noise that the _Thing_ made, and the glass ceiling coming into existence above.

All these things seemed to happen all at once, yet not. As if by an unseen force, he would find himself drawn to the child-like being he would only allow himself to think of as a creature. He felt pity for it regardless. Rooted to the spot, he would watch as it gasped for breath and tried to move its legs and arms. 

It had changed since Harry died in that forest long ago. Still helpless and pitiful, it no longer appeared flayed. The skin seemed to have grown back, pale and fragile. Harry felt that if he had touched it, he would break that skin, causing it more pain.

The first dreams always ended there, before anything could happen. Before Harry could act.

But the dreams grew longer and each time Harry felt less repulsed and more tempted to reach out to that pitiful, pained Thing. His paralysis before it faded and he would begin to reach out for the child. Before he could touch it, however, someone would jerk him away and say, “You cannot help him.”

Pulled out of the dream, he would wake up. After several nights of this, Harry realized in the darkness of his room, barely lit by conjured fairy lights, that the voice was Dumbledore’s. He stared at the foot of his bed, where his cat was peacefully sleeping, as awareness of this fact filtered through his mind. The warmth of another living being reassured him, especially after the realization that he had just heard the voice of a long dead man. Even hearing it in a dream chilled him. He had thought that time of his life was over. 

Suddenly he found himself sobbing, as he began to wonder precisely why Dumbledore was so insistent on Harry not helping the broken soul of Voldemort. Dumbledore’s conviction that Tom Riddle was not worth saving bothered him in ways that he couldn’t understand. It frustrated him that he even felt an _urge_ to help the man who killed him, his parents, and countless others. The two of them were connected, yes, but death should’ve severed it. His scar had even stopped hurting. Yet these dreams made him feel otherwise.

His heart hurt and it didn’t make sense.

A small meow cut through Harry’s thoughts. He looked up and through his tears, he saw his cat padding her way up his leg.

Wiping the tears from his eyes, he muttered, “Sorry for waking you up Professor. I had a bad dream.” She settled on his lap. Petting her calmed him down, though his questions about Dumbledore’s reasons lingered. He had years to grapple with how Dumbledore had maneuvered him and had come to certain conclusions. 

The next night, he dreamed the dream again, but this time instead of reaching out, he turned around and confronted Dumbledore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Calcification is considered to be one of the steps in several versions of the process of creating the Philosopher's Stone, a process that involved purification of not only a physical prima material, but also that of the alchemist's soul. It is a process that, in the physical sense, involves burning the prima materia into a white ash.
> 
> The entire process of creating the Philsopher's Stone is often called The Great Work or Magnum Opus in Latin.


	2. Separation and Duality

_The Separation of Two Dueling Elements…_

———

Which was not as much of a confrontation than it was Harry telling Dumbledore that he didn’t care and that he was going to try anyways and grabbing the child from under the bench.

He woke up with a start with a unusual weight on his chest. His eyes met the blurry pair of red eyes that belonged to said weight. Those eyes blinked in surprise briefly, then narrowed before their owner, a skinny, black haired boy, reached out to choke Harry.

There was little strength in Tom’s hands and it was easy for Harry to remove them from his neck. His reflexes, sharped by years of Auror work, soon had his guest pinned down, a wand pointed at the back of his neck.

“Don’t make me regret bringing you back Riddle,” said Harry sternly. He made quick work of securing the boy with a whispered immobility spell. Tom’s struggles stopped immediately and Harry finally let him go so he could retrieve his glasses. 

Thankfully, the struggle did not knock them off the nightstand, unlike his unfortunate lamp. Sighing as he surveyed the damage, he was grateful that a simple _reparo_ was able to fix it. His conjured lights had given off enough light up to this point, but the lamp, once lit, helped more.

He turned to the more important matter at hand: what to do with Tom Riddle. As a good Auror, Harry should inform the Ministry, but he did not want to. Those Department of Mysteries bastards would probably get involved and they were always trouble, especially when they got too curious about Harry’s experiences. Also, if word leaked, the circumstances would probably give strength to those rumors of dark magic that still lingered about Harry, even now. 

Harry was very very tired of those rumors.

What Harry needed to do was to keep Riddle a secret and figure out what this all meant.

Riddle also needed clothes. As soon as this thought occurred to him, Harry flung a blanket over the immobilized boy, hoping that would help with the sudden awkward feeling that he was doing something wrong.

The boy did try and kill him, he reasoned as he pulled out an old robe that he hoped would be sufficient. He shook it out and stared at the robe, wondering how he could possibly get this on Riddle without too much of a struggle. Was there a spell for dressing uncooperative toddlers?

If there was, he didn’t have the time to look it up. Riddle looked about eleven, so he should be able to put on his own damn clothing. Picking out a shirt and a pair of trousers that ought to fit with a few quick magical modifications, he threw the modified clothing into the bathroom.

After a simple sweep of his bathroom, insuring that Riddle would not be left with anything which could be made into a makeshift weapon, Harry levitated his captive into the room, blanket and all. 

“Okay, Riddle, I’m going to remove the immobility spell on you and lock you in the bathroom. I want you to change into the clothes I’ve put there. Please cooperate because I would rather not have to dress you like a temperamental three year old.” Through a crack in the door, Harry lifted his spell so it would wear off slowly. Even so, he slammed the door shut as fast as possible, jamming the key into the lock and turning it as fast as possible. 

Even in the form of an eleven year old boy, Tom Riddle still made his heart race. This was not what he had signed up for when he took his leave of absence. He thought he could just relax, meet some nice women and men, maybe have some fun. But no, he had to pull Tom freaking Riddle back from the dead instead.

An almost familiar voice then cut into his thoughts. “How childish do you think I am? I am not the kind to protest by refusing to clothe myself, no matter how garishly red the shirt is.”

“It matches your eyes, Riddle. Also you never seemed to have outgrown temper tantrums, so I have have not yet been convinced that you are not a toddler in clever disguise,” countered Harry, annoyed. Despite the adrenaline, he was still so very tired and his eyes were starting to hurt.

“Fuck off, Potter. You have no idea what it’s like to have to live next to your fucking soul, so _pure_ and _innocent_. You made me _feel things_.” Tom’s young voice was so acidic, Harry would swear it would burn a hole through a table if it was distilled into a potion.

Then Harry just started to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. It was laughter that he could not stop, his chest tightening up as tears welled up in his eyes. He had to sit down and catch his breath between the uncontrollable laughter, which became increasingly high pitched. Then it tipped over into hyperventilation and everything hurt as Harry struggled to calm himself down.

He was vaguely aware of someone knocking loudly and shouting in the background, but he couldn’t be bothered to care as he lay curled up on his bed. All he needed was this feeling to pass and to put himself back together so he could handle that thing he didn’t want to think about. That _monster_ in his bathroom so stupidly brought back. That he was _arguing_ with. It was so _very_ stupid.

Minutes passed before he could pull himself out of it.

The banging and the yelling continued. Harry slowly became aware that the source of the noise was Tom and the words that he was yelling were, “Potter! Potter, are you okay?!” The banging on the door was frantic, as if Tom was actually worried that something had happened to Harry.

Which didn’t make sense at all. 

“Goddammit Potter, you better not be dead!”

“I’m alive!” Harry managed to shout in response, as he gathered himself together and sat up. “I don’t even know why you even care, considering that you just tried to kill me.” The memory of the boy’s hands around his neck almost triggered his panic again. Maybe he should just report the bastard to the ministry. He wasn’t obliged to do anything for him.

Tom went silent, a quiet thump telling Harry that Tom had slumped down against the door. 

It was several minutes before Harry got his answer. 

“I don’t know why. I don’t know why I care for your pathetic existence. I hate that I care about you. I hate it so much that I want to kill you so I can just _stop_ caring. You fucking infected me with your disgusting feelings of love and friendship and all that worthless nonsense.” The bitterness from before had returned. There was no doubt that Riddle hated Potter. But there was something else underneath it all that made Harry curious.

“To be honest, I don’t care much for you either. Yet I still felt enough pity for you to grab you and bring you out here. I don’t know why either. You killed so many. You don’t really deserve to be alive when…,” Harry paused, blinking back tears, “when so many of the people I loved died because of you. I don’t know what to do with you. I could turn you into the ministry, but I’m tired of them. Tired of that damned place because of their rules and regulations that don’t actually allow you to do anything that might really help people. I don’t know why I became one in the first place to be honest. It just sounded like a good idea.”

“The Ministry of Magic is full of fools.” Riddle stated it simply as if it was fact and Harry couldn’t help but find himself agreeing.

“I wish I knew what to do with you. I can’t just let you go, you know that.”

“Help me put myself back together, then.”

“Maybe. Depends on if I think you’re beyond help or not. That’s what made me reach out for you in King’s Cross. That perhaps Dumbledore was wrong. That I could help you. But I think that will be up to you.” Harry wasn’t sure what he was doing, but he did not forget why he ignored Dumbledore’s advice in his dream. Doubt of Voldemort’s ability to change lingered, but maybe he deserved a chance.

“Come out peacefully and we’ll discuss it, okay?”

\----

“Why do you want to put your soul back together anyways?”

Tom’s request did surprise Harry earlier. Also surprising was his agreement to be restrained as Harry discussed his request with him. All of it was terribly curious and Harry could not help but wonder if Voldemort had some kind of ulterior motive Harry had yet to see. From what he knew of the man, there probably was.

Now that Riddle was tied to his kitchen chair, Harry could look at him properly and he saw that he still did not seem quite entirely human. His skin was still bone white and his eyes a horrid red, but his nose was more human, if only slightly misshapen. Short black hair had grown in and as Harry made sure that he was secure to the chair, he noticed small shimmery patches of white scales here and there. 

“I am only a small part of a greater whole. I desire to reunite with who I truly am. Perhaps then I will be able to rid myself of the part of you that leeched into me,” explained Voldemort as if it should be obvious.

Harry frowned. That did not sound right at all. How could _he_ affect the piece of Voldemort’s soul that clung to him on the night that his parents died? He still had that fear that his soul being so close to Voldemort’s for so long had somehow corrupted a small part of him, a part of him that was prone to anger and pettiness. A fear amplified by the fact that he could still, somehow, speak parseltongue.

He had never thought the influence could go both ways.

“Why should I allow you to join with any part of your soul? It’s certainly not better for me.” Harry didn’t even know why he was bothering with this. Nothing Voldemort could say would induce him to help him.

“Mercy. I feel pain at being apart from myself. It is almost unbearable.” The words sounded too sweet coming off Voldemort’s tongue and Harry did not trust him one bit. Even Veritaserum would be useless in this situation. It did not help that those staring, red eyes followed him everywhere.

He could’ve sworn there was even something of a hungry look to them, but he put that up to his imagination.

“You don’t seem to be in pain. How would you even join with yourself again? Don’t you have to feel regret for that? I don’t even know if you’re even capable of that.” 

Voldemort laughed. “Regret for what? There are things I regret, but there are things that I certainly don’t regret either. If you are so convinced that I cannot re-unite with any part of my soul, then what is the harm of taking me to it?” He smirked. “What else will you do with me if you won’t turn me over to the ministry to be experimented upon? Keep me locked up in your flat? That hardly sounds like something Dumbledore’s golden boy would do.”

“Don’t test me,” muttered Harry as he contemplated his options. A part of him _was_ curious if Voldemort was speaking about the truth of Harry’s soul influencing his. Was it possible to nurture that influence into something more? He once made a plea with Voldemort to feel some sort of regret before. Besides, Riddle had yet to use any magic and Harry was starting to wonder if he had any in this form. 

He also had a feeling that this might also be a bad decision, but he had a history of those anyways.

“I’ll take you to one of the locations where a Horcrux of yours has been destroyed. You can look there.” 

Voldemort looked surprised, an odd look that reminded Harry how young he looked in his current form. The moment didn’t last, but it made an impression. One that made Harry question his decision slightly less.

Perhaps the bastard was human after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Separation is considered to be one of the possible steps in the creation of the Philsopher's Stone in which one separates out the dross from what is desired. In this instance, I'm not precisely thinking of dross being separated, but Tom Riddle taking on physical form in this world apart from Harry.


	3. Dissolution and Desire

_To lose Oneself into Another…_

———

The world was dark and time felt endless.

Things existed outside him, like the rock his locket was destroyed on, smooth and cold under his finger tips. He heard other things, things that sounded strangely muted to his ears: distant bird song, the crunch of leaves as an animal passed by. His eyes continued to ache and he sat on snow that never melted. He could not bring himself to sit on the rock that was his doom. It was a cold and lonely place to be.

Solitude he could handle. For a very long time, he had no heart to pry into, hidden as he was. There was an enjoyment into finding those secret thoughts and feelings of those foolish enough to wear him, even if the game was a deadly one when it came to the redhead, the mudblood, and most importantly, that foolish child. He even almost had the redheaded boy, yet it all went wrong. Somehow.

Harry Potter was what went wrong. Foolish, stupid, stupid boy! Impotent rage tore through him as he screamed in frustration. Evicted from the locket, he found himself biding his time, plotting and scheming and raging. There was nothing else he could do. He was trapped there for what seemed to be eternity.

Then—finally—something shifted, changed. He could now sense that someone else was there. Someone who felt achingly familiar.

\----

They arrived at the Forest of Dean via side-along apparition. Harry barely recognized the spot where the locket Horcrux had been destroyed. Yet there amongst all the green foliage and bright sunlight streaming through, there was the sycamore tree and below it, the rock upon which Slytherin’s locket was destroyed.

He had not been here since that cold night. His pulse raced as he tried to ignore the memories that lingered in his mind of freezing water and a chain biting into his neck, choking him…. 

This was ludicrous, Harry thought as he reached for Riddle to apparate away with him. He just could not let that monster come alive again. It’d try to kill him just it had always done. 

But Riddle was not there nor anywhere that Harry could see. He had apparently just vanished into thin air. Could he have disapparated? No, there had been nothing of the distinct sound that accompanied the spell. Voldemort had to still be here somehow. 

Harry started to call out his names, wondering if he’d even respond to any of them.

\----

Voldemort (or maybe Tom Riddle, he wasn’t sure who he was anymore) did not see the same dappled shadows cast by sunlight as Harry did upon their arrival to the Forest of Dean. Instead it was night, snowy, and _cold_.

There he saw himself or at least another part of himself. Eighteen years old and still handsome—or rather—would be if it wasn’t for the chilling absence of his eyes, two hollow sockets with phantom blood still on his face. He moved around as if he was looking around for something, but he could not see his visitor.

The sight tore at Voldemort, an odd feeling of compassion, yet not too odd for this was his precious self, brought low by those unworthy. A step forward made the snow crunch beneath his foot, the first clear sound in this strange place made by someone other than the one before him. Who turned to face where the sound had come from. If he was not blind, Voldemort would think the man was looking straight at him. 

“Who are you?!” snarled Riddle, half shouting, his demand clearly conveyed. Defeat had not taken their tendency towards defiance away. 

Voldemort smiled at that.

He was always terribly fond of himself, knowing that he was stronger and more willing to push himself than others. Of course, he would not let a foolish thing like blindness to take their strength away. All that he could tell from a voice and the way he still held himself. 

Once rejoined, he knew they’d be powerful once again. He ached so much for that feeling of power, of magic in his blood once again. He remembered little of his captivity in that pathetic boy’s body, only that he felt truly alive again during the moments where he had rejoined with his greater self. Otherwise, he had been powerless, unable to even whisper in the boy’s head.

“I am another lost fragment of our soul.” As painful as it was to say it, it was true. He took a few more steps toward himself, ignoring the cold that seeped through his inadequate shoes. There was undeniably an attraction, an instinctive one, between the two of them as the other did the same. 

This was a sacred moment, he felt, here in the ice and snow where all else was still. 

“Are we to die?” asked Riddle, his voice trembling ever so slightly. 

Softly, Voldemort answered, “We can never die. I—we won’t allow it. There will always be another way to defy death. We cannot let ourselves be defeated by it. I am here and so are you. I was able to come here and I will bring you back with me to the world of the living.” 

It was then that Voldemort remembered that it was not him that engineered his escape back to life. It was the strange charity that Harry Potter had showed him, the charity of saying “no, this monster is not beyond help”, that brought him back.

That simple act of kindness made his heart ache in such a strange way that he could barely comprehend it. Was it the love that Potter had infected him with? Was the infection worse than than what he had thought? 

While Voldemort was lost in thought, Riddle had somehow made his way across to him. He took Voldemort’s cold hand into his and gripped it tightly, pulling attention to him again. 

“I feel something different when I’m near you. What is it?” he asked, a frown on his face.

Voldemort paused before answering. “I’m not entirely sure, but it might be love that we’re feeling.”

\----

Exasperated, Harry flomped onto the ground next to the rock, all former memories of this place driven from his mind. He was far too concerned with the fact that he somehow lost the former dark lord. Of course, somehow he would lose Voldemort out here. That was probably his cunning plan after all. Trick Harry into thinking he had wanted to restore his soul and run away as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

Maybe Voldemort was so talented at disapparition that he didn’t even make a sound when he left. 

Harry really did not want to think of what would happen now that he was on the loose again. It was also the only think he could think of in his despair.

\----

A look of disgust crossed Riddle’s face as he snatched his hand back.

“Love? How could you mention such a thing as if had any power?” For it was power that Riddle had felt in that strange feeling and it bothered him that Dumbledore may in fact had been right about love. “It has done nothing for us and the only thing I’ve seen it do is bring despair into people’s lives. Our mother died because she loved our muggle father too much after all,” he sneered.

“I did not ask for this!” Voldemort snapped back, “That child infected me with it!”

Riddle stopped moving as he frowned, thinking on what he had just been told. 

“Wait. Does that mean it was _you_ that I felt back then in Harry Potter when he wore me?” he asked.

Strangely, Voldemort felt ashamed, but did not know why. Perhaps it was because he had been so weak back then, too small of a fragment to be of any consequence, to have helped his fellow Horcrux. He should’ve been able to control Harry Potter just like any of the proper Horcurxes could control others. His creation was a mistake and he knew it. Yet perhaps he could make things right for them if only he gathered them all together and then…what, what would he do then?

“Yes, that was me,” he replied simply, betraying as little emotion as possible.

Riddle laughed and suddenly pulled Voldemort close, startling him. 

“I—I almost killed you,” he said between his laughter, “but your host was going to destroy me and you were there all along and I don’t know why I feel so emotional over knowing that there was something special about the boy after all, special enough to hold a fragment of us. Why I didn’t push him like that awful redhead, except I wanted the boy for all my own because he felt like me, but it was you all along.” Riddle rambled, his voice getting more and more high pitched, his laughter rapidly becoming triumphant cackling.

Voldemort just stood there, dumbfounded at Riddle’s behavior and affection. _Where did all of this come from?_ he wondered as he reluctantly returned the gesture.

“If I had known…,” softly said Riddle as he held himself tighter and tighter until it almost felt like they occupied the same space. Suddenly there was a flash of pain in both his heart and across his eyes. His whole world became nothing but sharp, almost soul killing pain. Tom thought he screamed at one point—he must’ve considering the pain—and then blacked out.

When he came to, he found himself curled up in a ball on the snow-covered ground, his eyes wet as if he had been crying. He could see once again and he knew everything that had happened since the evening before. Hurting all over, both within and without, his mind was in turmoil as he tried to process everything.

Harry Potter was the one who brought him back. Why? And why did he feel so odd about the boy as he thought about him? He was certainly not a boy anymore as his memories told him. That he had grown into a tired young man who was strangely handsome in a rugged way. Even his perpetually unkempt hair was oddly attractive. 

Tom frowned. These were not the thoughts he expected to have, yet there they were. Harry Potter was supposedly their mortal enemy. That much he had gathered, yet he had some kind of undeniable attraction to the man who now looked older than him. Who also happened to be the one who could reach across the borders to him.

One way or another, they were still connected.

Sitting up with a groan, Tom finally looked around the place where he had been held captive for so long. How appropriate that he had been trapped in a land of ice and snow. A perfect place for an unfeeling dark lord. It was even night, his favorite time of the day. 

When he looked at the flat rock, he saw something unexpected. It was a ghostly Harry, despair clear on his tired face. Tom wondered what had made him so sad. Surely it would not be the fact that Tom was back in the world between. He was of no worth to Potter alive after all…

_Yet,_ a small voice reminded him, _he did reach for us in the train station between._ Tom certainly wanted to return to the world of the living and Harry Potter did seem to be his best chance. Maybe he too could reach through the barrier if he could see Harry from here. 

He picked himself up from the snow and went to the ghostly Harry, who looked up in surprise. Tom, wondering what he saw, then leaned in and kissed Harry, mostly out of curiosity. The chapped lips of his former adversary grew firmer and warmer as he reached for Harry and pulled him closer. He enjoyed the sweetness of that kiss as sunlight and bird song came into being around him, pulling Tom out of the world between. 

Harry then promptly punched him in the face, ruining the moment and forcing Tom to fall back on his arse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dissolution is another step in the process of creating the Philosopher's Stone.


	4. Sun, Moon and Stars

_The Shine of Silver and Gold…_

———

Harry supposed he could heal Tom’s rapidly forming black eye, but honestly, he deserved it. The memory of Tom’s stolen kiss lingered on his lips and it made him livid. Tom’s reaction to being punched was even worse, as the murderous bastard just laughed.

He thought he was used to the odd behavior of heavy dark magic users from his years as an auror. They were prone to doing so as he cuffed them, laughing just as Riddle did, but his particular laugh got under his skin. At least he didn’t resist like they usually did. Harry remembered with a shudder the time he almost lost an eye when a dark witch decided to jab at him with her wand. Voldemort had been known to leave craters where aurors used to be.

It was not lost on Harry that Riddle _wanted_ to be in Harry’s custody. 

That, coupled with the kiss, made his skin crawl. What game was Riddle playing at? He needed advice badly—he couldn’t handle this alone anymore, he knew that for certain. Normally, he would go to Hermione for help, but he was not entirely sure if she would be able to keep it from the ministry. She might even think that was the best decision. Hermione was rising through the ranks, reforming it as much as she could along the way, but even she had trouble with certain factions. Factions such as the Department of Mysteries, whose Unspeakables seemed to answer to no one.

Harry checked his watch. Ginny should be at practice at this time of the day, meaning he could probably visit Luna. She was the best person to go for advice when it came to the stranger things in life these days, especially when they involved impossible things like Tom Riddle. He just hoped that he would not run into Ginny along the way. The last thing he wanted was for her and his companion to meet.

“Come on, I’m taking you to a friend’s,” said Harry as he roughly grabbed Riddle by the arm. 

Tom just looked at him, frowning as if he disapproved of his treatment. 

Harry ignored Riddle, still irritated at him and not caring one bit about how the former dark lord felt. He apparated them both to the home that Luna and Ginny shared, hoping that the experience of side-along apparition made him feel sick.

They landed in the front yard, not far from the path that led to their house. It was a nice place in the countryside, much nicer than Harry’s small flat in London. When he visited, it made him wonder what could’ve been if him and Ginny could’ve worked it out. But he figured it was for the best that Ginny found her peace with Luna. They were good for each other.

He, on the other hand, was stuck dragging around a man who ought to be dead. 

“Your friend appears to live better off than you,” dryly observed Tom as he looked about the yard. 

Harry ignored the comment and made his way down the path, knowing that Riddle would follow. He didn’t know how he knew, just that he did.

Riddle did, in fact, follow him. Harry knocked on the door, as Tom loomed behind him, and waited for Luna to answer. He hoped that Luna was actually home as he felt rather visible out there in the open. It was strange how much being vigilant had become the norm in his life, a habit he seemed to have first developed during the war and it was only encouraged by his time as an auror. 

It did not take too long for the door to open, fortunately. Luna’s cheerful greeting and obvious pleasure at seeing Harry show up so unexpectedly helped him feel more at ease. Quick introductions were made (Tom was introduced as someone in need of help) as well as a request for discretion, to which Luna agreed. She let them into the house and once the door closed, Harry let out a breath he did not realize he was holding. 

The house smelled of mulled cider. Luna must’ve been brewing some of it and he wonder if it any of it was ready. He could do with some of it, to be honest.

“So, this is a person in need of help who also happens to be wearing handcuffs. How interesting,” commented Luna as she led them to the living room. 

“It’s a long story,” Harry explained as he guided Tom to the sofa and sat him down. “I’ll tell you, but you need to promise me that you won’t freak out or tell anyone. Things have gotten rather…weird and, frankly, awkward for me.” He sat down beside his captive as Luna settled across from them in an over-stuffed chair. 

“Should I get us some tea first? I found some lovely biscuits the other day. I think they’re flavored with rose water. They’re rather good with tea,” offered Luna. 

“Ah, maybe after we talk?” Harry was hungry, having skipped breakfast, but he thought it’d be rude to not let her know the identity and nature of his companion first. “Is that mulled cider that I smell you making?”

“Yes! I can give you some once it’s ready, maybe in a thermos for the trip back. And don’t worry, I’ll be as calm as I usually am. Odd things happen every day and you know I can keep a secret. So, who is this young gentleman?” said Luna, answering Harry’s question from before. 

Harry briefly open his mouth and then closed it. He had no idea how to tell Luna that part of _Lord Voldemort_ was now sitting on her sofa. Riddle, of course was no help at all, as he just smiled pleasantly at Luna, saying nothing. 

“Well, he’s—” Harry began and that’s when Ginny apparated into the living room. Her eyes opened wide with recognition when she saw Tom and then, just as quickly, they narrowed as she stared down the offending person. 

“Why is that monster in _my_ house?” said Ginny, her question spoken dangerously slow. For one brief moment, no one moved. Then Ginny whipped out her wand and all hell instantly broke loose.

Tom moved, instinctively reaching for a wand that was no longer there, forgetting that he was in handcuffs. The pain on his wrists, however, reminded him and he found himself having to dodge the hex that Ginny sent his way.

Meanwhile, Harry rushed forward, shouting, “Ginny wait!” In his haste, he knocked Tom off balance as he pushed past, causing Tom to fall to the floor, almost knocking his head. There, he found himself facing Luna, who had taken cover under the coffee table. She smiled nervously when they eyes met and Tom could not help but return the gesture. 

Harry decided that the best course of action was to stand between Ginny and Tom, refusing to let her near him, and try to talk her out of probably killing him. He didn’t blame her—he still wasn’t sure why _he_ didn’t do it himself outside of the fact that he tried not to kill people if he could help it.

“I know what it looks like—” started Harry, but Ginny was determined to say her piece.

“That you didn’t bring a murderer into my house? The man whose very soul had possessed both of us??? Harry James Potter, you know full well what that monster is capable of and _you_ of all people brought him here. I don’t even know why or how he’s even in front of me! He is supposed to be _dead_ and only alive in our _nightmares_.” Ginny looked to be on the edge of tears, but she was too angry to properly cry. “You _know_ what he did. I—why is he even here?” she repeated, her voice hoarse, with tired bewilderment starting to set in. 

“I…it’s all my fault, Ginny. But I can’t just kill him, you know I can’t do that. Is there any way we can talk in another room? Just so I can explain things—I have—I have been awake dealing with _this_ since last night. I can’t go to the ministry, they’d look all askance at me….” His exhaustion and hunger were starting to show and he knew it. 

“I don’t trust him to be alone with my wife. Besides, you know what you what she went through too. How can you expect—”

“Ginny, I’ll be fine,” said Luna, interrupting the conversation as she extracted herself from under the coffee table, paying no attention to the dust bunny that had settled in her hair. “You always worry so much when I go on my expeditions. Just think of him as being one of my creatures. He is quite odd after all. He doesn’t feel a lot like the man who we saw die. Actually, he reminds me a tiny bit of Harry when I first met him. Though in handcuffs.” She looked over at Tom, who had finally managed to get into a sitting position and looked oddly disgruntled and in disarray. 

Ginny looked doubtful. “Fine, but if I hear any screaming, I’m coming back.” Turning to Harry, she said, “We can talk in the kitchen. That way we won’t be too far away.” She shot a meaningful look at Riddle, who tried to look as innocent as possible, though he could tell Ginny wasn’t buying it.

As Harry and Ginny left, Luna turned to Tom and helped him back onto the sofa. “So you’re Tom Riddle,” she said softly, “She does not like you. I’m not entirely sure if I like you either, but you feel odd. Not odd as in bad. Odd as in not the same.” Luna frowned. “The version of you I saw was different. Different look in his eyes. Who are you now, Tom Riddle?”

Tom just blinked at her. The woman in front of him was uncannily perspective and it bothered him. Maybe if he told her the truth, he would gain her trust. Harry would tell her these things regardless of what he did, so any lie he told would be caught. 

“In all honestly, I don’t know who I am. I know I wasn’t the one you saw die. I…I am only part of my soul. Do you know what a Horcrux is?” Tom confided in Luna. He doubted she knew, but it possible that she did.

“Yes. Ginny was possessed by one. One you had made.” Luna’s eyes narrowed. “I really hope that you aren’t that Horcrux.”

Tom shook his head. “I only know of her second-hand.” He neglected to mention he had gleaned the knowledge of her existence from the heads of Harry and his friends. 

“You’re one of them, though. Brought back to life. Who was the person you sucked the life out of to be here? Ginny had told me what that Horcrux had done to her.” 

Luna’s directness took Tom by surprise. It was unexpected from someone who seemed to have her head mostly in the clouds. He also did not have an answer for her as he was not entirely sure how or why he was alive again.

“Harry brought me back. That’s the only thing I know. I don’t know how he did it.” He did not feel like going into detail, of the turmoil that he felt around Harry and his deep confusion at how his renewed existence came to be.

“How do you feel about cartomancy, Tom?” asked Luna, as she pulled out a well-worn deck of what appeared to be tarot cards. “I often find that they help me think and see paths that I would not otherwise see. Would you like me to read for you?”

Always intrigued by divination, Tom smiled. “Yes, I would love that. It is always an interesting experience to see what the cards have to say.”

Luna began to shuffle her deck of cards as Tom watched her. She handled them with ease as she laid out three cards face down on the table between them. 

“Three cards for guidance,” she said as she flipped the cards over, revealing the images. The illustrations on the cards were not ones he had seen on tarot decks before. This must be a personal deck of hers, perhaps one that was passed on from her family. The surreal drawings fascinated him, drawings from which eyes stared back at him from above robes and a whale flew above the clouds instead of in the sea.

“Interesting.” She looked over the cards and handled them one by one, examining the images on each before putting them back in their place. “It seems like your intuition will be something you will need to listen to during your upcoming journey. You might also find yourself in a struggle between your intellect and your emotions.” She looked Tom in the eyes. “I think you know what I’m talking about. You’re going down strange roads for you, Tom Riddle.”

\----

Ginny was uncharacteristically quiet as Harry recounted the events that led to his current predicament. Even after he finished speaking, she did not say a word until after she had first made herself a cup of tea and sat back down in front of Harry. The entire time she looked to be deep in thought.

“What are you going to do?” she asked quietly, breaking the tense silence. She was staring down into her cup, some of her long hair falling in front of her face, obscuring it. 

“I’m…not sure. Maybe continue to help him,” said Harry with a sigh, “I’m not sure if that was the best idea in the first place, though…” He went quiet himself after that, his exhaustion and the feeling of being utterly overwhelmed catching up with him again. The slight thunk of a tea cup and the crinkling of a packet of biscuits in front of him brought him back to the present. 

“You looked like you needed it,” explained Ginny as she returned to her seat. “If you ask me, I’d say turn him in, but you seem awfully concerned about the Department of Mysteries. Why?”

“I just have this…feeling that they’re watching me sometimes. It creeps me out.” He didn’t mention how he had taken eating his lunches at his desk at work rather than in the cafeteria due to too many uncomfortable encounters with some of the Unspeakables, afraid that Ginny would dismiss his worries. Most people responded that way at the office after all when they asked. It was easier to say that he liked the quiet of the office these days.

Ginny frowned, perhaps sensing that Harry was holding something back. She drank some of her tea as they quietly sat there, neither of them knowing what to say. 

It was Ginny who finally broke the silence.

“I think you feel sorry for him, Harry,” she said, placing her cup on the counter, “Or you would’ve taken him straight to the Ministry and turned him over. It’s not too late to do so.”

Harry continued to sit there in silence, staring into his cup, not knowing what to say. Maybe his fear of the Department of Mysteries was just an excuse to not turn Tom Riddle in. He’d most likely end up in Azkaban more than anything else. Yet Harry could not get rid of that niggling feeling that kept him from doing exactly that.

He finally spoke. “He won’t die unless his soul is reunited, I think. Hermione explained it to me once…I didn’t realize he was still so scattered in pieces even after all these years.” Harry looked up at Ginny. “I need to make sure he can finally, truly, die. There’s a good chance the process may even actually kill him. And….” Harry paused and laughed slightly. “And maybe, just maybe, he might change along the way. I did mention that he did seem to actually care about me at one point, right?”

“I thought that when I was eleven, Harry,” Ginny pointed out, “He will lie to get what he wants.”

“Still, I think there was something genuine in his worry when I had my panic attack. I mean, he may have changed just by rejoining two parts of his soul. I mean…considering what happened after…,” said Harry, a blush spreading across his face.

“You mean, when he kissed you.” Ginny half teased him as Harry spit out his tea, but there was a seriousness beneath it all. “He’s still a charming bastard. He probably had his reasons to do that.”

“It came out of no where Ginny! I didn’t know what else to do other than punch him! It’s not like I _wanted_ it.”

Ginny just smiled a bit. “I know what you mean, though…sometimes you kinda do. As I said, he has a way of making you think he understands you.” She sighed, shaking her head. “I know I’ve heard you wish that he had enough in him to regret his actions in order to heal himself. You’re a good man, Harry. I couldn’t be so kind to him.”

“It’s….it’s just that I wonder sometimes that if he wasn’t raised in that orphanage and had a good family…would he have turned out as bad as he did? Some of the things I’ve seen since becoming an Auror has really made me wonder if we’re really doing all that we can to prevent the rise of another dark lord. The only thing we do is handle things once people become problems. What if we started focusing attention on prevention rather than clean-up?” Harry had also not forgotten about the amount of abuse so many people had gone through. Not all of them turned out like Riddle, but one could not deny that it had a profound effect on every single one of them. 

It was hard enough arresting teenagers for dabbling in the dark arts and either giving them a slap on a wrist or severe punishment, depending on how well their family was connected in the ministry. Why couldn’t they do more, like education? It frustrated Harry at how the wizarding world even lacked something like child protective services. The world was much more complicated these days when he no longer had Voldemort chasing after him. That was a simple matter of life or death…now, he didn’t know what was the right thing anymore.

Being an adult was much more difficult than he had imagined. No wonder Dumbledore tried to keep things from him.

Ginny shook her head, “You can’t save the whole world, Harry. You’ve already done that once. Do you really need to do it again?”

“The world never stays saved, you just grow up and see new things that are wrong.” He stood up, suddenly anxious. “It’s been too quiet. I think we should check up on Luna and Tom.”

Ginny nodded. “I think I can handle seeing the wanker without hexing him now. He is securely handcuffed, right?”

“Yeah, he is. I am a professional after all.” Harry flashed a smile to reassure Ginny before setting off to the other room to see what havoc Tom had or had not wrought.

He need not have worried however. Upon walking into the living room, he found Luna and Tom playing Go Fish, of all things, with a deck of tarot cards. It was an odd sight, seeing Tom hunched over with his cards fanned out in his handcuffed hands, intently staring at them as if he was in a serious game with high stakes. Harry shook his head. Of course someone like him would try and use strategy on a game like Go Fish.

“Okay, well that is strange,” said Ginny as she walked up behind Harry. Tom finally made his request at that moment, only to be told by Luna to ‘go fish’. 

“That isn’t the half of it.” A thought occurred to Harry as he sighed. “I need to get some sleep. I could go to my apartment, but that means I don’t have any one to watch over Tom. Do you think Luna would be up to babysitting him?”

Ginny just gave him a look. A look that said ‘Are you kidding me now?’ in the most sarcastic way possible. 

Harry sighed and started to say that he’d figure something out when Ginny stopped him. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t cause havoc as you sleep in the guest room. Half tempted to feed him a sleeping draught myself so he’d be less of a worry. I know Auror equipment also suppresses magic and for some reason he’s playing _card games_ with Luna. I think we’ll be okay for now.”

And so it was decided. Harry would get his rest and…then maybe he would be in a better condition to figure out what to do next. What could go wrong?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ginny is the Sun and Luna, of course, is the Moon. Both planetary bodies are relevant in alchemy, the sun representing gold and the moon representing silver. Gold is often considered the most pure of the metals, with silver not too far behind. Gold is often valued for it's malleability, especially interesting when you think about Ginny's first encounter with Tom Riddle.
> 
> In a way, Ginny and Luna are relationship goals in this story. 
> 
> The deck referenced for the scene where Luna reads tarot for Tom is the Wooden Tarot by the artist Andrew Liam Swartz. Their art can be seen at skullgarden.net. The specific cards used in this reading are the following: The High Priesetess, God of Plumes and God of Blooms. Also, yes, you can totally play Go Fish with tarot. Also Poker from what I've heard.


End file.
